1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to generating media stations and more specifically to fingerprinting media stations.
2. Introduction
Many users enjoy consuming content such as music or television shows without having to purchase or maintain a copy of the media item. Traditionally, users could accomplish this through radio or television broadcasting. Each station can broadcast a sequence of media items based around the station's programming model, e.g. country music, rock music, talk radio, sports programming, etc. In some cases, the programming model can vary with the day or even time of day, but overall the programming on a particular station is fairly structured. While traditional radio and television broadcasting provide streams of content, which in many cases are free to the end user, traditional broadcasting suffers from a number of drawbacks. One such drawback is that the content distribution model is very rigid. In order to consume the content, a user must tune their device to a particular station. Once on the station, the user is only able to consume the content scheduled for that time period.
The widespread use of the Internet and portable electronic devices has made it possible to offer more flexible content distribution and consumption models. For example, in many cases, a user can carry around a large media collection on a small client device. Since most client media playback applications permit users to create playlists of media items, a user can easily consume a sequence of media items whenever the client device is available. Additionally, many client devices include features that will generate playlist automatically from the media items in the user's media library. Such features can create a content consumption experience similar to that of traditional radio or television broadcasting, but one that permits the user to control when and how the media is consumed. However, under this model, the content consumption is limited to those media items on the device or at least already licensed to the user.
Some media consumptions models include streaming media content to a client device. Some approaches involve allowing clients devices to specify one or more media “station” which attempt to include only media items falling into a particular category and that fit a user's tastes. However, user-specified stations are disjointed and a first station cannot benefit from user interaction data received in a similar station.